'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Review
'Real Time With Bill Maher'
by the intrepid journalist, JCV
I literally got my cable hooked up yesterday night at 10 pm. It was a last minute effort following three days of halfwits wearing tool belts scratching their heads and staring at my TV with blank looks. But it's working now, and just in time to catch Bill Maher's new show.
Maher is finally on HBO, and its for an hour, and he can say "fuck," and there are no commercials. Finally! I have been yelling at my TV for years and saying "Hey, they ought to put Bill Maher on HBO!" to no avail. In the last two years, so much in the world has gone completely opposite from the way I would have preferred. Now, at least we didn't lose Bill Maher to the forces of Stupid.
Maher was also the highest profile casualty of the post-Sept. 11, although others like Ted Rall caught some hell too. So it's good to see him back, sort of like we haven't quite lost all the battles here recently.
Don't get me wrong, I am not a particularly large Maher fan. In fact I think he is a bit of a dick, but I have a great deal of respect for a man that not only consistently says unpopular things, but says them loudly and can back his mouth up with a good line of reasoning.
First off, Maher argues with some congressman hawk about the war, and the congressman is just all sound bites and vague generalities, and the audience keeps applauding him like he's making great points. It was a bit creepy, like maybe everyone but me is crazy now.
But the real kicker was the fact that Ann Coulter was on the show. That's a hell of a good way to spend an hour on the couch with a bottle of Jim Beam, because that bitch is crazy. She was screaming the other day that it is actually the Democrats that hate Negroes because Strom Thurmond was a conservative southern Democratic at the time of that now-famous segregationist speech. She's completely out of her minds, like Rush Limbaugh draped in a blonde wig and shot full of atropine.
On Maher's show, she first made her mark by calling people who don't support the President's missile shield traitors.
"If that isn't treason, I don't what is," she said, but with such crazy vitriol that the audience just gasped. Like "Zoinks! This lady's crazy!"
She finally point-blank asks Maher whether or not he supports the missile shield and he replies "No, because I don't think it will work... because the people attacking us have boxcutters. At a later point he yells at her "They live in fucking caves! It's not going to be a missile!"
Then, after an audience member question on affirmative action leads to a debate on whether or not Bush would have gotten into Yale had his dad not been who he was, Coulter says Bush got a 600 on the SAT, and that his scores were about the same as Gore's, and better than Bradley's. Maher basically says "Oh come on, you know Bush got in because of his dad."
Coulter objects to this, and Maher says "You just make shit up, you do."
Then Chris Rock comes out and says to Coulter "600 on the SAT? You can't get into Vasser with 600! Are you fucking the president?!"
Then Maher announces some new rules, one of which is "No joking on the French," or something like that. We shouldn't joke on the French now because at least they stand up to Bush, "more than I can say for the Democrats."
Then Sarah Silverman comes out and says "if there had been black people in Germany, the holocaust wouldn't have happened....or not to Jews."
So all in all, it was a good first show. I think we can now add Maher to the small but growing club of people criticizing this administration. Although it's still mainly just him and Crossfire, it is nice to be able to hear even a little rational discourse again, and to laugh while doing it.
Of course, I could be wrong. Perhaps Maher just saw straight-shooting politically-hip cynicism as a good angle for his Carlin-esque comedy. Sort of like Dennis Leary, only smart and funny. But I don't think so. I think it's more likely that even in the corporate world of Hollywood, a genuine talent will often slip through despite all the efforts to homogenize what we see and hear.
Welcome back Mr. Maher.
~~ JCV
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...All you
have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists
for lack of patriotism ...It works the same way in any country."
- Hermann Goering
Thanks, J! Great job!
Reader Link
Re: Duct Tape
duct tape
The original prom outfits that the teens made are
really fun to l@@k at, as are the teens themselves. Not because i'm drooling, but becuase they l@@k like
interesting people and they [gasp!] come in difffent shapes, colors and sizes.
< /sarcasm off>
~ kitty
Thanks, Kitty! I am acquainted with a character who has taken an inordinate amount of pride in his duct tape wallet for a couple of decades. We call him
'CB' - Cheap Bastard.
Hey Ben In Florida
Re: Frodo Failed
Many, many thanks to the ever-amazing Tim of TBH Politoons
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Reader Link & Service
'Downsize W'
Hm, scurrilous anti-Bush t-shirts, that reminds me, and thanks for lighting a fire under my butt to finally do it:
downsizeW
Since we ARE allegedly the guy's boss and all, and I for one am not too happy with his job performance rating to date...
~~ Samantha L
Thanks, Samantha! Nice things!
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, breezy day - but, the weather is changing.
The Alaskan grandmother finally checked in. She had her dates wrong, but didn't let anyone know...
Today at the shoe store, found out the 10-year-old kid has bigger feet than me.
Tonight, Sunday, as is tradition, CBS opens the evening with '60 Minutes', and then is followed by the 'Grammy Awards'. (For a complete
listing of the nominees, scroll down). The Grammys will be live to the east & central time zones. 'Tape-delayed' everywhere else.
NBC starts the night with 'Dateline', and follows with a FRESH made-for-tv-movie, 'James Patterson's 1st To Die'.
ABC has a FRESH 2-hour 'I'm A Celebrity - Get Me Out Of Here', followed by a FRESH
'Alias', and then a FRESH 'Dragnet' (where Sandra Bernhard guests).
The WB starts with the weekly RERUN 'Gilmore Girls', followed by 4 RERUNs of 'Surreal Life'.
Faux begins with a RERUN 'Simpsons', follows with another RERUN 'Simpsons', and then the movie 'X-Men'.
UPN has the weekly RERUN of 'Enterprise', and then 'Stargate SG-1'.
HBO airs the Series Finale of 'Oz'.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Big Dog Watch Continues
Bill & Bono
Irish singer Bono (L) of the group 'U2' accepts the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Musicares Person of the Year award from former United States president Bill Clinton in New York February 21, 2003.
Bono was honored for his accomplishments as a musician and as a humanitarian.
Photo by Fred Prouser
Exhorts Americans to Speak Out
George Clooney
resident Bush and his administration are manipulating Americans into supporting war on Iraq, Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney says.
The former "ER" star told a British radio program to be broadcast this weekend that the administration "did a very smart thing, first of all trying to tie Sept. 11 to (Saddam) Hussein and then
to stand up and say, 'You're either with the administration or with the enemy,' which works directly opposite of the idea of freedom of speech and freedom of dissent."
"It's the founding principle and it's not just your right but your patriotic duty to question the actions of your government," Clooney said, according to a partial transcript released Saturday by the British Broadcasting Corp.
Clooney, 41, said he attended a half-million-strong anti-war march last week when he was in the German capital to attend the Berlin Film Festival.
"There's a difference when the people are marching in praise of their government's stance as opposed to trying to fight against it," he noted.
Clooney appeared on "Desert Island Discs," in which guests discuss the records they would like to accompany them into exile on a desert island.
Most guests choose favorite pieces of music, but Clooney picked "Star Trek" actor William Shatner's monotone version of The Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds."
"You need a reason to get off the island, and if you play William Shatner singing 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' then you will hollow out your own leg and make a canoe out of it to get off this island," Clooney said.
George Clooney
'Doonesbury' Tackles Oregon School Issue
Garry Trudeau
Oregon's school budget crisis is hardly a laughing matter, but don't tell that to the maker of the comic strip "Doonesbury."
The strip next week will introduce the nation to the plight of Oregon's cash-strapped schools by poking fun at the decision to cut 24 days from the Portland school year.
The artist, Garry Trudeau, uses the strip mostly to lampoon resident Bush for his pledge to be the education president.
"Education-wise, I still stand by my original challenge to the American people," Bush says in one of the panels. "Leave no child behind, except in Oregon and a few other loser states."
Garry Trudeau
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
At The Cesar's
Meryl Streep
When Meryl Streep won France's highest artistic honor Saturday, she thanked the French for "loving women of a certain age — in movies and in life."
France's culture minister, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, named Streep a commander of the order of arts and letters, praising her "courage, delicacy, sensitivity and determination" and saying she's
been a star in France since 1985's "Out of Africa."
Streep, 53, thanked her fans in both French and English.
"Usually, America doesn't reward people of my age, either in day-to-day life or for their performances," she said.
"I hope they'll understand," she joked.
Meryl Streep
Some 2,000 demonstrators partake in a protest against a possible war in Iraq and block the entrance of the US Air Base Rhein/Main in Frankfurt, central Germany, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2003.
Sign reads 'Disarm Bush'.
Photo by Michael Probst
Suffers Blow in Pooh Case
Disney
Walt Disney Co. has suffered a significant legal setback in its fight to avoid paying more than $200 million in royalties from the sale of videotapes and computer games featuring Winnie the Pooh.
The California Supreme Court for the second time effectively has blocked an appeal by Disney to keep jurors from being told that the company destroyed boxes of evidence, including one labeled "Winnie the Pooh -- legal problems."
In addition, Disney will not be allowed to dispute that a late company executive promised the plaintiffs that they would be entitled to the royalties.
"They can shred, but they can't hide," said attorney Bert Fields, who represents the family that holds Winnie the Pooh merchandising rights.
On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court, without comment, refused to hear an appeal by Disney, which was seeking to have sanctions lifted that had been imposed by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge.
The high court's action is the latest development in a 12-year-old lawsuit filed by Shirley Slesinger Lasswell and her daughter, Patricia Slesinger, who inherited the Pooh merchandising rights in the 1950s. They maintain
that Disney has cheated them out of at least $200 million, perhaps as much as $1 billion, in royalties on Pooh-related videocassettes, DVDs and computer software.
The issue that reached the California Supreme Court began with an August 2001 ruling by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ernest Hiroshige. After hearing evidence that Disney destroyed dozens of boxes of documents
relating to Winnie the Pooh, Hiroshige determined that Disney "knew or should have known" that the Slesingers' lawyers would be interested in those records.
The judge said Disney "made false and evasive responses" to the Slesingers and "unduly delayed disclosing destruction of evidence." He ordered Disney to pay the plaintiffs $90,000 for legal fees. More significantly,
Hiroshige ruled that jurors in the trial would be told that Disney destroyed evidence, and he barred the company from challenging claims that a ranking executive promised the Slesingers that they would be paid the disputed royalties.
Disney
Donates Plot for PayCheck
George Jones
Country music star George Jones is donating a burial plot next to his own for colleague Johnny PayCheck, who died earlier this week.
"We all know and love each other, even though we don't get together. Anything of this nature, it's taken care of by friends," Jones told WSMV-TV in an interview broadcast Friday. Friends said PayCheck died broke.
PayCheck played in Jones' band early in his career, and the two later recorded an album called "Double Trouble."
PayCheck, best known for the working man's anthem "Take This Job and Shove It," had been bedridden in a nursing home with emphysema and asthma. He was 64.
George Jones
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Visits 'Miracle Worker' Cast
Patty Duke
Patty Duke — Helen Keller on Broadway in 1959 — meet Skye McCole Bartusiak, Helen Keller on Broadway in 2003.
The 56-year-old Duke, who starred with Anne Bancroft in the original New York production more than 40 years ago, talked Friday to the cast of the revival of "The Miracle Worker" before a rehearsal.
The production opens April 24 at the Music Box Theatre with Oscar winner Hilary Swank playing Annie Sullivan, Helen's tenacious teacher.
Duke, who ends a run Sunday in the Broadway revival of "Oklahoma!", told the performers she couldn't give them any advice on acting in the show. "Their talent speaks for that," she said. But Duke did
extol the value of "good padding" to Swank and 10-year-old Bartusiak for the show's ferocious fight sequences.
Patty Duke
A tourist takes a picture of the horse skeleton, at Ercolano nearby Naples, February 22, 2003, who died during the Vesuvius volcano eruption in 79 A.D. The skeleton is close to Villa dei Papiri (Papyruses Home),
one of most important archeological site in Ercolano. From 1700 to 1900 the archeologist discovered about 1000 papyreuses in that site. The Villa dei Papiri will open to visitors officially on March 1, 2003.
Photo by Mario Laporta
Pastor Decries Appearance
Vicki Lawrence
Vicki Lawrence has plenty to say about her years on "The Carol Burnett Show," her stint as a television talk-show host and the No. 1 song she had 30 years ago. But some here wish she'd put it less colorfully.
The Rev. Jim Lankheet, pastor of a church where Lawrence appeared Tuesday evening, said he received several complaints about Lawrence's language during her 90-minute appearance.
Lankheet declined to disclose any of Lawrence's words, other than to say, "God's name was used in ways that weren't respectful."
Lawrence issued an apologetic statement Friday.
Lawrence's appearance before a crowd of about 1,000 was part of a community weight-loss and healthy lifestyles initiative.
Vicki Lawrence
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Newspaper Apologizes
Sandy Koufax
The New York Post wasted no time apologizing and retracting a gossip item that prompted Sandy Koufax to end his 48-year relationship with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but whether that would be enough to bring
the Hall of Fame pitcher back into the fold wasn't immediately clear.
Koufax, baseball's most dominant pitcher in the 1960s and for many years after that a Dodgers pitching instructor, severed all ties with the team after the Post printed a gossip item insinuating he was gay.
The Post and the Dodgers are both owned by News Corp., and while Koufax told the Dodgers he had no ill will for the team he felt it would be foolish for him to promote any property owned by News Corp.
The company, which bought the Dodgers in 1997, is trying to sell the club.
Koufax told the team he would no longer attend spring training at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Fla., visit Dodger Stadium or participate in any activities while the team is owned by News Corp.
Maury Wills, Dodgers coach and a teammate of Koufax on the Dodgers' 1963 and 1965 World Series championship teams, called the former play "a tremendous friend and tremendous teammate."
"Notice I didn't say former teammate because he's still a teammate for life," Wills said. "Of all my teammates, he's one of the few I've had constant contact with."
Sandy Koufax
A dog stands on a surfboard as its owners wait for yachts competing in the America's Cup sailing competition to leave Viaduct Harbour in Auckland, New Zealand, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2003.
Photo by Rob Griffith
Launching Eminem Clothing Line
Macy's
Now all Eminem needs is his own cologne. The rapstar-turned-Hollywood actor with a hardscrabble upbringing in Detroit is launching a new clothing line at Macy's, joining the ranks of jack-of-all-trades celebrity Jennifer Lopez.
Federated Department Stores Inc., parent of the Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Lazarus chains, said on Friday it will start selling some of Eminem's Shady Ltd. clothing collection at select stores in April. A full-scale launch of the fall line is set for this summer.
Heavily featured in the collection are hooded sweatshirts, velour jogging suits and baggy jeans in the baby blues, blacks and creams favored by the young male urban hip-hop sect. Prices will range from about $25 for t-shirts to $100 for outerwear.
Eminem, who has drawn the ire of women's and gay rights groups with the lyrical content of his Grammy-winning albums, scored the biggest commercial hit of 2002 with his latest album, "The Eminem Show," which sold 7.6 million copies and received a
Grammy nomination for Album of the Year last month. He also scored rave reviews for his starring role in the film "8 Mile," which opened in November and quickly exploded to Hollywood blockbuster status, grossing over $100 million domestically.
Macy's
Icon of S.Africa Theater
Gibson Kente
One of South Africa's best-known playwrights, Gibson Kente, confirmed Friday he was HIV-positive -- becoming one of only a handful of celebrities to go public about AIDS in the country worst hit by the disease.
Kente, 69, who pioneered theater in South Africa's black townships during the years of apartheid rule, said he was coming forward to fight the stigma associated with AIDS.
"I have HIV, why not make some use of it?" Kente told Reuters Friday as news of his declaration was splashed across the front pages of major newspapers.
An estimated one in five South Africans, or 4.7 million people, are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, giving the country the highest caseload in the world.
Kente, who along with Athol Fugard is one of South Africa's best-known playwrights, learned of his diagnosis on Feb.1 and quickly decided he should go public.
"Things like this are never easy. But when you believe in yourself, and you believe you serve a bigger purpose, then what is the use of keeping it to yourself?" said the playwright, known affectionately as "Bra Gib" to generations of South African theater-lovers.
Gibson Kente
Cat Lovers Unite
Rome
A couple of thousand cat lovers turned out for Rome's first "Cat Pride" march on Saturday to demand protection and funding for the city's thousands of strays.
Donning whiskers, bearing signs and in some cases cradling cats in their arms, protesters streamed by the Colisseum and ancient Fori Imperiali ruins, home to many "sacred strays" which Rome declared a part of its historical heritage last year.
The stray cats have been slinking through the ruins since they were first excavated and their protectors believe they are descendants of felines who stalked Roman temples in the time of Julius Caesar more than 2,000 years ago.
On Saturday, the city's "gattare," or "cat ladies," marched to demand government aid for cat shelters and neutering programs and more help from the general public in protecting and feeding the animals.
"The cat ladies and men of Rome are finally coming out of the closet!" organizers declared in posters.
Rome
Blacklisted Film Recalled on 50th Birthday
'Salt of the Earth'
A classic movie about a mine strike had lots of strikes against it before shooting was done: The director and writer were blacklisted, the lead actress was deported, labs wouldn't process the film, projectionists wouldn't show it.
The film itself, "Salt of the Earth," was the only feature banned outright in the Cold War freeze-out that kept many directors, writers and actors from working.
It also landed 10 of them — known as the Hollywood 10 — in jail for contempt of Congress in the 1950s after they refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
It was one of that group, director Herbert Biberman, who made "Salt of the Earth" with funding from the miners' union that went on strike against Empire Zinc in southwestern New Mexico.
Filming began 50 years ago, in 1953, in the glaring spotlight of American politics. A dozen years passed before anyone saw the simple, well-filmed account of the strike — one that was carried out by the wives of miners who'd been ordered back to work by a judge.
From Feb. 27-March 1, The College of Santa Fe is staging a 50th anniversary "Salt of the Earth" conference, including a blacklist exhibit assembled by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. "Salt"
and blacklist-related films like "The Front" will screen amid panel discussions featuring blacklisted screenwriters Norma Barzman, Walter Bernstein and others.
Besides Biberman, the Hollywood 10 included Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo.
Norma and Ben Barzman lived 30 years of self-imposed exile in Europe rather than face Congress. Her just-published memoir, "The Red and the Blacklist," evokes the era, the stress, the adventure, the sadness.
It's all happening again, she frets, recalling a news story that reported talk show callers labeled U.S. Rep. James P. Moran, D-Va., communist "because he's antiwar," and some of her friends suspect their phones are tapped.
"I think our liberties are being taken away little by little. I'm 82, and I've been through a lot," she says, "but I think this is one of the worst times."
'Salt of the Earth'
Sami Al-Arian, holding daughter Lama, 6, center, with son Abdullah, 19, left, daughter Laila, 18, foreground left, daughter Leena, 14, center, wife Nahla, center right, and son Ali, 9, foreground left,
pose for a photo with presidential candidate George W. Bush and wife Laura in this March 12, 2000 family photo in Plant City, Fla. Others, extreme right, are unidentified.
Photo courtesty Al-Arian family
"We enforced a clear doctrine that said if you harbor a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist, if you hide a terrorist, you're just as guilty as the terrorists -- and the Taliban knows what we meant."
Many thanks to the Stranger at www.blah3.com/!
'The Osbournes'
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